Bought in my local second-hand English book shop (East of Eden) along with a few other books, and for a trifle, I am sure. When I bought the book I had already seen the movie (back in December 2006, or was that 2005?), so it must have been sometime in summer 2007. Ah, July 8, to be precise, just like this one. (Good I'm keeping tabs on Bookcrossing, eh?)

I've always wanted to read this book before I even knew what it was about, mostly because of the title - I mean how could I not? Who doesn't love lions and witches? And who wouldn't wonder what a wardrobe could possibly have to do with them? Well, I did.

The film was okay, though I thought the centaurs and such did not look as good and realistic as they ought to. (I mean if someone brags about "real as life" animations, of course that's what I expect. Sheesh.)
I only mention this because I expected they had to cut some stuff and congest some information, but it turns out they stayed pretty faithful to the story, with only really minor aberrations.

There's some kind of aggregation of the story's beginning on the first page, and at first I thought it was an extract and the writing was simply awful. Luckily, it was just the way the sentences (directly taken from the story) were merged together to form some kind of summary. It felt fake and sounded wrong, and overall clashed horribly.
The real writing style was rather pleasant, however, not too heavy-handed, not too descriptive but descriptive enough, with realistic dialogues without crossing the border to boredom, which adds up to an altogether enjoyable children's tale.

I've heard all about the religious interpretations, of course, and they do make the story a tad more interesting, but I've found that the story works well enough by itself as Lewis never expects the young reader to know about stuff they don't, or even stops to explain things that detract from the story.
Still, it is a children's story, so the Peverell kids are rather stereotypical characters, with Lucy being the most interesting (if terribly naive) and Susan the most boring one. I'm not too fond of the ending because ... (spoilers follow, highlight to make them visible) assuming it wasn't all a dream (which I don't think it is the case) I cannot imagine how those children could have continued their lives as if nothing had happened after having not only spent years in another world, but also growing up in the mean-time, being kings and queens, and by now quite likely interested in the other sex (even though Lewis would never ever mention that).

I liked Lewis' dedication to his goddaughter Lucy: "I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. [...]" :)
Also, thanks to Bookcrossing (well, Amazon, really), I now finally know what his initials stand for. Hehe...

This copy has a very nicely illustrated cover. I'm not sure whether this was done by the same artist who did the inside drawings (one Pauline Bayes) because I thought the latter for the most part to be rather unoriginal and a bit bland. This book once belonged to a girl called Alice Brown, which should be a common enough name I don't need to abbreviate it. I think.

I don't think I'll be wanting to read it again, so I'll be offering it as a RABCK or ray at some point in the near future. I shouldn't have any trouble finding a new reader.

As promised, this'll be a ray with the following participants: The book is now in the wild.

inkling1
Schatzdose
You?
...
DieHenkerin

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Sent to inkling1 on Tuesday the 7th October.
This is the first book I've labeled manually in a long, long time (for German books I usually use the nice stickers, but I haven't labeled any of those in a while either), so please forgive me if it looks a bit wonky. :)

received the Narnia chronicles in good condition today; may take a while until I
start. Many thanks.

a nice and easy to read story, really a childrens book; Narnia is quite simple compared to
the universe Tolkien created, but it was OK.

Sent to Schatzdose today.

Well, I just thought to read that little book in only a few days - but I'm sorry to say that I have just finished. It's a nice book and I think the movie sticks(?) very close to it.

Thank you!!!

A wonderful book for children. I always thought this was the first book from the Chronicles of Narnia, I never heard of "The Magician's Nephew" before...

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Mal sehen, wo ich ein hübsches Plätzchen dafür finde. (Mehr Informationen nach dem Freilassen!)

Nachtrag: Das Buch ist auf einem der Stühle vor L111 zu finden!